Itamar Franco

Itamar Augusto Franco (28 June 1930-2 July 2011) was President of Brazil from 29 December 1992 to 1 January 1995, succeeding Fernando Collor de Mello and preceding Fernando Henrique Cardoso. He was a member of the Brazilian Democratic Movement party.

Biography
Itamar Augusto Franco was born at sea in Brazilian territorial waters in the Atlantic Ocean, and he became an engineer in Bahia before becoming mayor of his hometown of Juiz da Fora in 1967. In 1974, he was elected into the State Senate of Minas Gerais against the opposition of the military, but in 1986 failed in his bid to become governor of the state. In 1988 he presided over the committee investigating the corruption charges against Jose Sarney, and in 1989 made a crucial contribution to Fernando Collor de Mello's successful presidential campaign. In return, he became Vice-President, but he soon broke with Collor and left his party. He took charge of the affairs of state following Collor's suspension on suspicion of corruption in October 1992, and became President upon his resignation on 29 December 1992. To reduce the country's endemic hyperinflation (2,567% in 1993), he carried out a currency reform and introduced the real, whose value is pegged to the US dollar. He sought to strengthen the country's democratic and liberal base through constitutional reform on 24 May 1994, which limited the president's term of office to four years and for the first time granted Native Americans a degree of self-government. He left office in 1995, and he served as Governor of Minas Gerais from 1 January 1999 to 1 January 2003 (succeeding Eduardo Azaredo and preceding Aecio Neves), ambassador to Italy from 2003 to 2005, and Senator from Minas Gerais in 2011.